rebodied with out salvage a title

[bbg]

As to Norm's question about the secret numbers, I think the numbers under the cowl and behind the heater box are the secret numbers. If not this is the best kept 40 year old secret I know of. It would have been someone's job at the assembly plant to stamp them for starters, and I haven't ever heard of anyone coming forward stating their job was "secret number stamper". Secondly all police officers would have to have access and surely someone would have leaked the info by now. We know where these are because this is our mark of interest. Anyone here know where they are on a 65 Falcon, or a 69 GTX, or a 95 Taurus? I don't, only the vin plate on the dash, but they are there somewhere. Has anyone ever checked your vin data? Not mine. I think if you stole a car 30 miles from your house and put different dash number on it, you stand a pretty good chance of getting caught. If you stole one on the west coast and took it to the east coast and changed just the dash vin, do you think you would get caught? Something would have to arouse suspicion to the car first before anyone would give it a second thought. So that Yenko you just stole becomes a base camaro. You tell everyone you just built a clone. Maybe change a thing or two to make it questionable. Everyone knows you can't afford a real Yenko anyway. No way it's real. You get to drive and enjoy it from now on, and it was FREE.

[Jeff H]

The real issue with altered cars is the fact that there is no federal motor vehicle laws. Some states issue a title, others don't. Take a salvage title car to a state with no title for a year, then sell it elsewhere as a clean car. Some states use 2 license plates, others use 1. Once a car has a salvage or repair title, it should stay with the car forever and that's why we need federal control, not state control. And inspections/emissions should be the same in every state as well.

[RichSchmidt]

We talk about all of this stuff going on,but my neightbor is into building early iron,and some of the stuff is just whacky.They build cars with one year body,and another year frame,the body may be so rusted that it doesnt have numbers on it,but the frame does.Other guys use a totally rusted body with an aftermarkt frame and late model engine.How do you keep tabs on cars that are 70 years old and havent been on the road in 50 years?He just got a title for his 32 ford using a pencil trace of some numbers he found on the frame,which I think isnt the one that came with the body on the car,and the last titled owner was back in 1953,and has been dead for at least 30 years.The frame was found in a barn,the body was upside down in a corn field 1000 miles away with chickens growing in it,and not one mechanical part was anywhere to be found.It is now a straight axle gasser style hot rod with a bigblock chevy,zoomie pipes,4 speed,4" chop,and 14" wide prostreet type rubber under it.The orginal frame has been boxed and butchered,the body needed a cowl,floors,rockers,and a ton of patchwork.So what will people be doing with 69 camaros in the year 2050?

[bbg]

Don't you think all these numbers were originally just to help trace theft, identify parts, and help track batches in case of warranty claims and recalls? We are the ones that have made them so much more. Seems to me to be more of a GM issue than anything else. From what I understand a Boss 302 is identified as such in the vin number. I know that the vin on an amx or javelin tells you if it were an amx or javelin, what engine, carbureation, transission, column, or floor console, all on the vin. No guessing here. With a 69 camaro the vin tells you if it is a 6 or 8 cylinder. Early cars had little info on the infamous data tag and since they can be removed you have to wonder if it has been switched. Without a paper trail you have to be a detective and piece together enough data to decide if what you see is real or not. Block changes on a Boss seem to be a normal occurance as there was some sort of problem with them and the boss folks don't seem to care - to them big deal. A Z block is just a 350 block with 4 bolt mains and are very common. Rotating assembly different, yes but the block is the same. You have an original Z block bored out to the outer limits of hell and have custom pistons made or sleeves installed and you are good to go. Just don't deck that block. It doesn't matter if the cylinders are too thin, it overheats, has possible poor head seal because the block isn't true. It still has the numbers on it. Replace that block with a good correct block and although you now have a much better engine that is again identical except for those numbers and you have really screwed up. Get the right block casting and casting date, have it restamped and you are scum of the earth. Same applies to these unibodies - patch up a rusty piece of sh-- with a Goodmark catalog and everyone seems to be just so impressed with that list of new sheetmetal you had instlled. Clip it or install a whole really clean unibody and again you have commited the ultimate sin. Never mind now the car is a much better and safer car, those little numbers aren't there. But you know what in all of this really doesn't make sense to me. A couple of years ago Reggie Jackson took a camaro to Barrett-Jackson. A ZL1, COPO, I don't remember which. It had the wrong block in it and he said so up front. Said he did have the original block but it was damaged beyond repair. I guess it was there to help with the documentation. It bid to $277,000 if I remember right and he turned it down. Seems to me we are the one's screwed up. Are we doing this for the cars, the money, an investment, all the above? Or again are we just following the status quo. Doing what we have been told to do and doing so without question? Just as was just said. All these street rods are built out of a stew of parts, all years, all models, aftermarket, whatever to build what the builder sees fit. The cars are built, titled, sold, driven, and by grannies bring big money. If anyone can explain away all this I for one would like to hear it.

[njsteve]

I think the real reason we are all doing this is to try to create our own little time machines. I'd love to be able to get in my time machine, walk back into a 1969 or 1970 Chevy or Dodge dealer and order a car, show up again on delivery day and store it away til today. Sounds like a Stephen King novel. In the absense of the time machine, the only way we can "go back" is to recreate the past by restoring the cars to the way they came from the factory. On Mopars it's a little easier for documentation purposes: the VIN says it all: hemi or 440-6, etc. On Chevy's it only says 6 or 8 cylinder, hence the problem or fakes, clones, rebodies. That is why the issue of provenance is so important; you are establishing the integrity and authenticity of the car and its unbroken chain of ownership back to its original delivery. Without a documentable provenance, all you have is just another V8 Camaro. So when the provenance is diluted or destroyed by a rebody or a fake, or 2 cars showing up with the same VIN after the original was destroyed in 1969, then you only make the genuine cars worth so much more in terms of monetary and esoteric value.

[budnate]

I need to chime in and ask a question that has been on mind for many years,
Let’s see if I can word this right without causing too many problems,

Doesn’t it bother you that most of these cars are being redone in garages across the world by guys that made a trip down to Tool Town and picked up a wire feed and few pneumatic chisels and are rebuilding some car in there garage??????????????

I mean really! Here are people that have never been to any kind of school on welding etc….Doesn’t that worry you at all???

Did the welds really penetrate??? Or did you overheat the weld???

Or my favorite saying I must have heard a thousand times in different shops.
“Good enough for this Guy”. Or “I’ll let the next Guy worry about it”

I am not going to get into clipping of cars that has been covered very well so far, but I will add one thing that has not been covered, yes there was a union guy that may have not been the sharpest tool in the shed putting these cars together when new, but in his defense they were welded with nice equipment that was “calibrated” to weld properly the two metals at the time, they also were crash tested to ensure integrity of the components, and this worker was trained to use the equipment properly.

I spent enough time years ago around the dealers and body shops to confirm all that has been said in this thread, I have not been in any shops lately but I would assume they have cleaned up tremendously due the liability world we live in now.

One more page in “As the Thread Turns”.

Bud.

[bbg]

Well said budnate, and a very good point.

[RichSchmidt]

What is really scary is that even when a car is totaled in New Jersey and is clipped at a professional shop,and instpected by the state inspector,there is no way to verify if the welding was done correctly.I weld race car chassis and have never had an official course.My welds get certified to protect sombody in a 175mph crash and are done with a Home Depot mig welder.
Once a car goes up for inspection after a rebuild,the welded repairs are already ground,seamsealed and painted.If the entire thing were on the verge of falling apart nobody would even know,and this could be the case even with many of the very reputable body shops.Around my area,it is still common place for car restorers to braze 1/4 panels on with a torch,and to make structural repairs to a car by heating up and bending the frame of the car with a torch.Once brushed off and painted nobody will ever be able to tell the differance,but will the metal ever be the same?
As for backyard restorations,you will be lucky to find somebody who actually puts the effort out to go buy a welder and cutting tools.Half of the cars I see at cruise nights have floorpans,firewalls and fender aprons that were repaired with everything from pop rivets to adhesive glues.The scary part is that many of these cars were daily drivers with floors that had no more sturcture to them then was provided by the 3 layers of floor mats that covered the rust holes,and there are cheap skates out there who would rather remove one rear shock from their rotted out camaro then replace the punched out shock mount.That is how bad the state of affairs is on old cars in the northeast.So in reality anything done with a welder is better then the bailing wire and pop rivet fixes that are employed on the majority of vintage cars of true driver quality.
The fact of the matter is that clean old original cars are almost non existant in unrestored form.If you took a brand new Camaro back in 1969 and put it in the average notheast garage the day you bought it,after 35 years,it would have rot on it even if it never touched the road.Most base models were driven daily and either have major accident damage,or severe rust,or both.Most supercars were either burned for insurance money back in the 70's when gas prices got too high,or turned into race cars that were eventually cut up and tubbed and junked when their race car build became outdated.Very few people had the forthsight to stash these cars away,and most of the ones that turn up have some kind of tale of woe behind them like the owner died in 1972 or in combat or some other reason why a perfectly good bigblock muscle car wasnt being driven and beaten to death over the last 30 years.
Most supercars turn up in former race car condition{no useable sheetmetal from the firewall back},or as abandoned wrecks that were wrapped around a pole back in 1976 and the owner left under a tree in his back yard with the good intentions of fixing someday until the rust gremelins ate what was left of the car from the inside out.We now have to consider restoring these relics or just letting them vanish off the face of the earth.One side of the hobby feels that by ridding the world of all the rust buckets and cut up bigblock camaros the market will be higher for the remaining few.The other side of the market feels that if it can be saved it shoud be.These are two very different opinions on a the very core subject of our hobby.Either way,people should admire other people's cars for what they are,and limit their actions to their own vehicles.If you dont like the way a car was restored,then dont buy it.These are only cars,and the only people willing to pay 6 figure sums for them are people who have nothing better to do with 6 figures.If somebody wants to spend their retirement check on a pieced together heap with bogus parts,then that is their opinion.I know enough about the muscle car market to know what want and how much I feel it is worth and that is what I concern myself with.
Another thing to remember is that our beloved supercars were some of the most poorly built vehicles on the history of automobiles.I hate to say that,but it is true.In a discussion the other day with a fellow racer,I pondered at the fact that I started my car hobby back in 1988,and was into 1st and 2nd gen camaros at the time.My first camaro was a 1973 and I bought it in 1989.It had 2 1/4's put on it,the trunk floor was completley missing,the door jams had holes in them as did the lower door frame and the lower front fenders.While on a high school budget,I looked at many camaros,and all the affordable base model 1st gens had major rot issues,as did all the mid 2nd gens such as the many 75 and 76 camaros I knew of at that time.Almost all of the 50's iron I have even seen since the late 80's has been more solid then those camaros.Today I would have to search high and low for a 1984 camaro that even had a litle bit of actual rust holes in it,yet in 1989 I couldnt find 1 20 year old camaro even a base model 6 banger for a reasonable price that didnt have rust holes the size of footballs all over it.We have to remember what it is we are working with here.